


The Tarleton Hall Affair (1875)

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary CLX [5]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Cambridge, Destiel - Freeform, F/M, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Murder, Untold Cases of Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-09 15:25:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10415181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: Case 2: Watson meets the scruffy detective again, this time at the fenland university city – and across two dead bodies, where the genius proves that an apparent suicide is in fact a double murder.





	

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Mention of suicide.

In the normal run of events, a doctor is supposed to deduce what is wrong with a patient from the information provided, and then recommend the correct course of treatment. Looking back, there were several signs that something had changed in my world, yet whether consciously or no I ignored them, and continued with my life as before. Then again, they do say that doctors make the worst patients.

I was still angered after the way the case of the “Gloria Scott” had ended. That the Bargate College authorities would wilfully ignore the actual facts of the case just to protect someone of the 'calibre' of Lord Rushcliffe was frankly depressing, made more so by the fact that it was equally unsurprising. Fortunately Stamford informed me within days that Sir Charles had wholeheartedly backed his son's decision to quit. Indeed, I have strong suspicions – though of course they can never be proven – that the nobleman may have been instrumental in that college's subsequent financial problems, and its eventual closure. 

One particular incident stood out, concerning a young lady who was studying to be a nurse. Her name was Miss Cassandra Robinson, and several of my fellow students had attempted to win her favours, to no avail. It came as something of a surprise when she approached me and suggested having a cup of tea together. She was stunningly beautiful, yet throughout our meeting I felt absolutely nothing for her. Evidently she got the message and our encounter was not repeated, to the surprise of my colleagues.

I was cheered when Stamford wrote to me again a few weeks after my arrival back in London with the most excellent news. His former room-mate had, after some efforts on his father's behalf, obtained a place on a similar course to the one he had been on at Tarleton College in Cambridge. I had never heard of that particular establishment, assuming (correctly, as it turned out) that it was one of the newer ones. I had no idea then how that name, along with the blue-eyed genius, would come barrelling back into my life the following year.

What did surprise me, at the time, was that Holmes himself started writing to me regularly. I had not thought that our brief encounter had merited such favour, but I was more than happy to be proven wrong. He seemed to be settling in well to his new establishment, and I only wished that it had been closer to London so that I might contrive to visit him. His quirky mannerisms were, in retrospect, rather endearing, and I wondered if I might suggest meeting up in London when he came to visit his parents one time.

As it happened, I did not need to.

+~+~+

In March of the following year, I and my fellow students found ourselves each having to submit a lengthy essay, the subject being the field we thought we might one day specialize in. I have to say that I dreaded such things; writing has never been my long suit, as I much prefer the practical to the theoretical. Against the advice of my classmates, I chose as my topic the field of general practice, listing my reasons for wanting to enter it and my hopes for what I could realistically achieve. I have to confess that I was greatly relieved when, before handing back the papers, Doctor Eden mentioned that no-one had failed the assignment. Though that relief was tempered somewhat when he also asked me to stay behind afterwards, presumably to discuss my unusual choice of topic. 

“Every year except your last”, he said, “we arrange with hospitals around England for our doctors to spend the last three weeks of Trinity term to go and observe. It gives you all a width of vision as to how different parts of the country deal with different problems, a width you can them come back and share with the rest of us.”

I nodded. I knew this already.

“We normally try and get each doctor somewhere vaguely close to their home town”, he went on, “but a prime posting has just come up in eastern England, and as your essay was so..... well, different, I wondered if you might be interested.”

“Indeed I would”, I said heartily. “Where is it based?”

“It is the Cambridge University Medical Centre, responsible for all medical matters concerning the various colleges”, he said.

Holmes, I thought at once. 

“It sounds most intriguing”, I said quickly. “I would love to be considered.”

“Never mind considered, lad, you're going!” the professor chuckled. “That essay of yours showed a level of commitment to the public good that was absent from virtually all the others. You leave at the start of June, and will lodge at the Centre itself. Good luck!”

I thanked him and left, wondering at the twist of Fate that was again causing Holmes' path and mine to cross. But it was only three weeks, and there were many colleges. I might very well not see him.

+~+~+

I naturally apprised Holmes of my visit, and was a little upset when he wrote back that this would be at the height of his own examinations. However, he promised to write to me at the Centre once he had specific dates, and could arrange some time off to see me. 

Summer seemed to take longer than usual to arrive that year, but eventually I found myself boarding a train at Liverpool Street Station for the university city, and after a long journey through first the grime of London's north-eastern suburbs and then the much pleasanter Essex countryside, we pulled into Cambridge railway station. I took a cab as I had been instructed, and reached the medical centre shortly before tea. It was a pleasant, single-storey building, looking more like a squire's residence than a hospital. I was welcomed by a Doctor Patrick Wellons, a forty-something fair-headed man who spoke with the distinctive slow burr of the local area, and he took me to my lodgings, where I quickly settled in.

The first week passed uneventfully. I was deputized to follow various Centre doctors on their rounds and the whole thing was fairly mundane, although it was impressed on me that I was in no way allowed to discuss what happened at one college anywhere else. Discretion, it was said time and again, was everything in this post (I was tempted to see if I could obtain a vest with that slogan written on it, I heard it so often!). I was however enjoying the variety of challenges that arose, and although both Holmes and I were busy that first week, I knew that he was free at the weekend.

Fate, it turned out, had other plans.

+~+~+

It was a Saturday and technically my day off, but unfortunately my hopes of slipping over to Tarleton had been scuppered by my own good nature. I had volunteered to stay on duty as one of the centre's doctors was getting married shortly, and he and his friends wanted to travel down to London for the wedding preparations. I had not attended any cases on my own as yet, but presumably I must have impressed them sufficiently for them to accept my offer. I was promised a day off in lieu during the coming week, and as I knew Holmes' examinations finished on the Thursday, I planned to meet with him on the Friday.

There was only one case that demanded our attention that Saturday, a fevered student at Girton, and Fforbes, the other doctor on duty, went out to deal with it around seven o'clock. I remained at the centre alone, expecting Fforbes' return upon which I would be able to leave. However, a little after half-past nine I received a message to the effect that that the presence of a doctor was required at Tarleton immediately, and that they had even sent a trap for me. Wondering at the reason for the urgency, I grabbed my bag and left. 

Tarleton lay on the western outskirts of the town, and had, I knew, been founded when the owners of the great house of that name gave over part of their estate for a college some thirteen years prior (all right, I may have made inquiries about Holmes' new abode). The trap went not to the college, I noted, but to the Hall itself, and a footman was waiting anxiously for me, hurrying me inside with more speed than decorum. There I was greeted by the butler, who ushered me upstairs with equal speed. At the end of the corridor a heavy oaken door hung on a single hinge, clearly having been broken down, and it creaked ominously as I was almost pushed into the room behind it.

I found myself in what was clearly a study of some sort, and a heavy-coated man (whom I judged, it later turned out correctly, to be a policeman) was staring at me impatiently. My attention should have been more drawn to the two clearly dead bodies, one slumped in each of the fireside chairs, but was instead focussed on the familiar figure standing by the fireplace between them, staring at me in equal astonishment. 

It was Mr. Sherlock Holmes!

+~+~+

My friend looked at me for some time, then managed something perilously approaching a smile. Our mutual confusion was ended only by a polite cough from the policeman. 

“Sergeant James Huntington, sir”, he said. “Sorry about the lack of uniform; I was off duty when the call came in.”

I broke away from those cerulean eyes and nodded to him, before turning my attentions towards the bodies of the two deceased. The man was about thirty years of age, sallow-skinned with light fair hair and a long nose with a notable kink in it. He was wearing a dressing-gown over pyjamas, both of high quality. The lady had been younger, probably in her early twenties. She had light brown hair that flowed over her shoulders, and was wearing a powder-blue dress. I would have said she was quite pretty, were it not for the look of sheer hatred that had disfigured her face in death. I looked across at Holmes.

“Mr. Holmes is a student here, and he had been helping us catch up on paperwork at the station”, Sergeant Huntington explained. “He has an interest in crime, so I thought that his presence might be valuable.”

I nodded, and glanced at the clock on the table. Almost ten o'clock. 

“They have both been dead for not less than an hour, and not more than two”, I said confidently. “Unfortunately the presence of the fire makes it harder to give a narrower estimation, as it has helped slow the natural cooling process. I would say an hour and a quarter is most likely, but I cannot be more exact.”

The sergeant looked relieved.

“That fits very well, sir”, he said, looking down at his notepad. “The gentlemen downstairs heard the shots just after the clock chimed a quarter to nine.”

“The cause of death is painfully obvious”, I said. “Both were shot in the head, and they must both have died almost immediately. However, the man was shot at some distance, and the woman at close range. From the position of her body I would suggest that she may have stood from her chair, then either collapsed back into it when shot or have advanced, been shot and then been placed there.”

The sergeant looked away for some reason. I narrowed my eyes at him. What was he not telling me?

“The room has not been entered except by the two people here, sir”, he said slowly. The three gentlemen downstairs rushed up when they heard the shots, and there is no other exit from the room.”

I gestured towards a second door behind the lady's corpse.

“What about that?” I asked.

“It only leads to the connecting bedroom, and the only exits from there are out onto a balcony or back into the outside corridor.”

“But this room has a balcony too”, I objected. “Could not the murderer have escaped that way?”

“The door has been locked on the inside, and there is no sign of forced entry sir”, the sergeant said. “Besides, it has been raining for the past two hours, yet there are no footprints. I have checked.”

I winced. I knew where this conversation was heading, and I did not like it.

“What is that smell?” I asked, hoping to take my mind off the inevitable conclusion as to what lay before me.

“Lavender”, and it was Holmes' familiar gravelled growl. “There is a scented candle on the table by the door.”

“I have to take witness statements from the four gentlemen who were here at the time”, the sergeant said. “This is very bad. Miss Bessborough was a lovely lady. I do not know what could have possessed her to do such a thing.”

“Are you sure that she did?” Holmes asked dryly.

The sergeant looked at him, puzzled.

“The facts do seem to point that way, sir.”

“Doctor Watson and I know each other from a prior meeting at Oxford”, Holmes said. “I think, sergeant, that if you would not mind, the two of us would like to sit in on your interviews. And we should definitely start with Doctor Arrowsmith.”

“Why so?” the sergeant asked curiously.

“Because the badge he wears on his lapel indicates that he is of the temperance movement”, Holmes explained, “and therefore his recollection of events is likely to the the clearest of the four.”

“Oh”, the sergeant said. “Yes. As you wish, sir.”

He led the way out of the room, and I was about to follow when Holmes caught at my sleeve. 

“I am glad that it was you who came”, he said quietly. 

There was absolutely no reason for me to blush. But I did it anyway.

+~+~+

I could not help notice, as we waited for the servant to bring Doctor Arrowsmith, how nervous the sergeant looked.

“It seems”, he said, “that Miss Bessborough shot Mr. Holder, then turned the gun on herself. When I briefly questioned the four gentlemen earlier, each of them stated quite clearly that there were only two shots.”

“And the shot that killed Miss Bessborough does not strike you as at all odd?” Holmes asked. The sergeant looked puzzled.

“How so?” he asked.

“Sergeant”, Holmes said, “the bullet was almost perfectly front and centre to the lady's forehead. Surely someone committing suicide would more usually point the gun to the side of their head? Staring down the barrel of a gun seems an unnecessary strain.”

I could see from the young sergeant's expression that he had not thought of that, but further conversation was rendered impossible by the arrival of our first witness. Doctor Roger Arrowsmith was about fifty years of age, and as Holmes had surmised, his recollection of the events of the tragic evening was indeed precise.

“The four of us sat down to dinner at six”, he recalled, “and it lasted for just over an hour. “We finished about five minutes after seven; I remember dessert being cleared away just as the dining-room clock struck the hour; that clock is always a few minutes behind the one in the main room, which is kept perfectly to time. We all adjourned to the main room downstairs, except for Philip, Mary's brother. He went to his room to write some letters, and was there the whole evening. Poor man, he must be devastated.”

“And where is his room, sir?” the sergeant asked. 

“Four doors along from Ebenezer's – Mr. Holder's - but the corridor between is open on one sides, and clearly visible from the main room downstairs”, the doctor said, looking hard at the policeman. “If he had gone to the room, he would have been seen by at least one of us.”

“Not if you were distracted”, I pointed out. He looked offended at such a suggestion.

“I was mostly facing the opposite corridor”, he said, “but James and Geoffrey were both facing that way. If Philip had come out of his room, they would have seen him!”

He was clearly not to be moved on this point. The sergeant changed tack.

“Did you see anyone go into the room between seven and nine?” he pressed.

The doctor thought for a moment.

“I went up almost immediately – it must have been about ten past seven – to take Ebenezer some pills”, he recalled. “Don't look like that sergeant; it was for a mild nervous complaint, nothing that would have any bearing on the case. I dare say that they are still in the room somewhere. You are perfectly at liberty to have them tested if you so wish.”

“Is that why he had the candle?” I asked. I knew some people found the scent of lavender restful, although in the murder room it had been a little overpowering.

“No. I believe that was a present from Miss Bessborough”, the doctor said. “They were all but engaged to be married, you know.”

Clearly the sergeant had not known that. The furrow on his brow deepened.

“James – Mr. Tarleton, who owns this house – went up to take him a drink at shortly after half past seven”, the doctor recalled. “Ebenezer had been in India last year, and had acquired a fancy for strange and rather pungent drinks from that country. When he came down, he said that Ebenezer had asked for Geoffrey – March, the family lawyer – go up after eight to discuss a legal matter with him. He went up just after the main clock stopped chiming the hour, and was there for about twenty minutes. Mary arrived home at twenty minutes to nine o'clock – I looked at the clock as she came in, wondering if it was getting too late - and she went straight up to the room after bidding us good evening. It must have been only seconds after she entered that we heard her cry out, and there were two gunshots before we could move. We made it there as quickly as we could, but we were too late.”

“How long do you think it took you to reach the scene of the crime?” the sergeant asked. The doctor thought for a moment.

“We were some distance from the staircase to start with. And then we found the door locked, and had to break it down. James and I went back to the alcove by the top of the stairs and found the old wooden bench there, so we used that. I would say that it took us not much more than a minute and a half to break through, two at the absolute most.”

Sergeant Huntington caught up with his notes before asking another question.

“You said that Mr. Philip Bessborough was in his room at the time”, he said. “Why did he not reach the door first?”

“I believe he was in the water closet adjoining his room, sir. It is what the French call an _en suite_.”

Holmes uttered something that sounded suspiciously like a snigger, but when I looked across at him, his expression was blank.

“May I ask a question?” he ventured.

“Of course”, the sergeant said.

“When you yourself entered the room, did you notice any particular smell?”

The doctor frowned.

“Only that damn candle that reeks the place out!” he snorted. 

“It was not lit?” Holmes asked.

“It lay on the floor, by the door”, the doctor said. “We entered the room somewhat precipitously, you understand, and the table just behind the door was upturned in the confusion. It may have been on it and alight when we entered but, as I am sure you will understand, our minds were on rather more important matters at the time.”

“And you are sure that no-one entered the room apart from the people you stated?” the sergeant pressed.

“You must ask James and Geoffrey if they saw anything. I was mostly facing away, as I told you. May I be excused?”

“We would only ask that you wait until we have interviewed everyone involved with the case”, Holmes said silkily. “Matters may arise from the recollections of other people, and I am sure that you would not want a policeman calling at your surgery when you are receiving patients. Particularly as this story will be all over the town by tomorrow.”

The doctor scowled at him, but nodded and left.

+~+~+

Our next visitor was Mr. Philip Bessborough, brother to the female victim. He was in his mid-twenties, a small man with a puzzled frown on his pale face, as if he could not quite believe the night's events. Somewhat to my surprise, Holmes whispered something to the sergeant, then almost fled the room before our visitor had sat down.

“Yes, I had a number of business letters to write”, he said, and I felt instinctively that he was holding something back. He looked far too nervous.

“I understand that your sister was engaged to Mr. Holder?” the sergeant prompted.

“Not an official engagement as such”, the man admitted, “but there was definitely an Understanding between them. I thought they were very much in love....”

“'Thought they were'?” the sergeant queried at once. “What do you know, Mr. Bessborough? I would have you know that withholding information is itself a very serious offence in the eyes of the law!”

The man looked pleadingly at me, then sighed heavily. 

“I suppose it will all come out now, anyway”, he said reluctantly. “Just over a year ago, Ebenezer had an affair with a...” he blushed before continuing, “a lady of the night during a visit to London. Last month she sent him a letter informing him that there had been a child, and that he was the father. He went down to see her, and when he came back he admitted that the boy was the spitting image of him. Especially as regarded his nose.”

I thought back to the distinctive proboscis on the male victim.

“Did your sister know about this?” I asked.

“No”, he admitted, “but I told him that there could not be a marriage between the two of them unless he confessed all beforehand. I made him promise to tell her tonight. If only.....”

He put his head in his hands, making a visible effort not to break down. We waited for some moments for him to compose himself.

“Do you believe that she was angered enough by the news to actually kill him?” the sergeant said, frowning at his notepad.

“May was all about family honour”, the man said sadly. “The Bessboroughs go back even further than the Tarletons, you know. And she always carried a small pistol with her, ever since she was attacked walking home from a party in London one time. I just never thought.....”

He broke down completely this time, and I looked at the sergeant, who nodded his agreement for me to take the man away. I escorted the shaking man to the main room and left him with the doctor, and Geoffrey March then accompanied me back to the interview room. He was in his mid-forties, balding and (I thought privately) far too self-confident for a potential murder suspect. We went into the room, and he sat opposite the sergeant. There was still no sign of Holmes.

+~+~+

I was not at all surprised when the lawyer invoked client confidentiality in refusing to discuss his conversation with the late Mr. Holder. He thought that he had stayed with the man for closer on half an hour rather than twenty minutes – he had certainly descended before the clock struck the half-hour, leaving a clear fifteen minutes before Miss Bessborough's entering the room - but otherwise his recollections of the evening tallied perfectly with everyone else's. He stated categorically that no-one apart from the three of them had entered the murdered man's room. It seemed that we were getting nowhere.

“He was the last man to see Mr. Holder alive”, the sergeant noted once he had left. “It really does look as if Miss Bessborough shot Mr. Holder, loath though I am to think such a thing in this day and age.”

“It may be worth investigating to see if he has been stealing money from the estate”, I mused. “Though how he could have committed the crime, given what we know, I simply cannot see.”

Holmes returned to the room at that moment with our final witness, Mr. James Tarleton. He was a dark-haired man in his early thirties, not unlike the victim Mr. Holder, and looked every inch the nobleman. His account matched up perfectly with those of the other witnesses.

“I would like to ask one question, if I may”, Holmes said politely, looking at the sergeant for permission. I thought to myself that this was a good side of him, as it was clear he could easily overawe the young policeman, but was working with him instead. The sergeant nodded his approval.

“You have stated that Mr. Holder's room had a set number of visitors that evening”, Holmes began slowly, “and that either you or Mr. Tarleton were facing the open corridor at all times. You are absolutely certain that no-one else went along that corridor?”

Mr. Tarleton stared at him angrily.

“If you are trying to imply that Philip somehow slipped along it without us noticing, then you are wrong!” he said firmly. “Not only was that door solid oak, but it also creaked mightily every time someone went through it. Ebenezer kept it that way so he could always know if someone was coming in.”

“You did not entertain any feelings for the lady yourself?” Holmes said pointedly.

The nobleman blushed fiercely.

“I am a gentleman, Mr. Holmes”, he said acidly. “Whatever their feelings, gentlemen do not poach the fiancées of other gentlemen, even if the engagement has not yet been formalized. It is Just Not Done!”

I smiled inwardly at his forthrightness, as the sergeant indicated that he could leave. 

“What about the stairs?” I ventured.

“What do you mean?” the sergeant asked.

“Well, I said, “the three men said that they went up the main staircase to reach the top corridor. That staircase folds back on itself, so there must have been a period of time, if only five or ten seconds, when they were not able to see the door. What if someone got in or out then?”

Holmes smiled at me.

“A good point, doctor”, he said. “Unfortunately when I spoke to the housekeeper just now, she confirmed that one of the maids was serving drinks at the time of the shot, and remained downstairs with her eyes on the door the whole time.”

The sergeant visibly slumped his shoulders.

“This is bad”, he said heavily. “A suicide and a murder.”

“Not quite“, Holmes said quietly. “A double murder, made to look like a suicide and a murder.”

The sergeant stared at him incredulously.

“How could you know that?” he demanded. Holmes looked at him thoughtfully.

“I sense that you are a decent man, sergeant”, he said slowly. “What Doctor Watson and I are about to do is highly unethical, but will, if the person I need to speak to behaves as people are wont do do under stress, enable you to prove that Miss Bessborough did not kill Mr. Holder, and that she did not subsequently take her own life.”

The sergeant looked at him in amazement.

“And you think....”

“It would be better if the representative of the law was otherwise engaged for the next half-hour or so”, Holmes said gently. “I know that you have men posted outside the house, just in case. The housekeeper is waiting for you downstairs, and it would only be natural for you to spend time interviewing the staff.” He smiled knowingly before adding, "and her coffee cake is quite delicious!”

The sergeant nodded silently, and left the room without a word. Holmes went to the door and summoned the butler, then returned to the centre of the room and extracted three things from his pocket. One I recognized as the scented candle from the murder room, the second was a plain white envelope, and the third a folded piece of paper.

“I do not see how anyone other than Miss Bessborough could have committed the murder”, I said plaintively. “And Mr. Tarleton assured us that no-one else entered the room.”

“He lied about that”, Holmes said brusquely.

I was about to ask him how he could possibly know that for a fact, when there was a knock at the door. Holmes looked at me, and nodded slowly. 

“Enter!” he called out.

The door opened, and I fought hard to suppress a gasp at the man who came through it. It was Mr. Philip Bessborough.

+~+~+

Holmes took a pen out of his pocket and laid it on the folded paper, before turning to our visitor.

“Mr. Bessborough”, he said, and his tone was suddenly much less amicable, “time is short. I have informed Sergeant Huntington that he will know the identity of the murderer of your sister and her almost-fiancé before the evening is out.”

The man looked puzzled.

“But I thought....” he began.

“You will therefore do me the courtesy of signing this confession”, Holmes interrupted, gesturing to the table. “Thirty minutes after you so do, it will be placed in the sergeant's hands. What you choose to do in that time is your own business, but as I am sure you have realized, the sergeant has men posted around the grounds. There are two ways out for you, sir. If you are a gentleman, you will choose the only honourable one.”

“Sir, I must protest!”

Holmes sighed.

“Very well”, he said heavily. “I will tell you how you did it, and then why. First, you lied to us over Mr. Holder having fathered an illegitimate child in London. You were the one who did that, and Mr. Holder became aware of that fact. As well as making you persuade Mr. Tarleton to allow him to move in here, he used that knowledge as a lever to force you to accept his suit for your sister, despite the fact that you would much have preferred her to make a more prestigious match with Mr. Tarleton.”

“Sir!”

“You planned it well. You knew that your sister always arrived back at the same time every Saturday evening from her meeting, and a few moments before she was due, you left your room and walked up the corridor, entering not Mr. Holder's room but the adjoining and connected bedroom.”

“But that is impossible!” I objected. “No-one was seen to go along that corridor between Mr. March's descent and Miss Bessborough's return.”

He turned to look at me, a glint of almost manic triumph in his blue eyes. I felt instinctively glad (not for the last time) that he was on the side of law and order.

“When Mr. Tarleton insisted that no-one used that corridor between eight twenty and eight forty-five”, he said, “he was not being strictly truthful. What he actually meant was _no-one important used it_. When during that time a maidservant came out of one of the rooms and entered another, it did not consciously register with the gentlemen downstairs. After all, who would spot a servant going about their business?”

Mr. Bessborough had gone a deathly shade of white. Holmes turned to him.

“I have retrieved the maid's uniform which you appropriated”, he said crisply. “So what next? In the adjoining bedroom, you changed back into some regular clothes you had left there earlier, then waited for your sister's return. Once she was in the room, you burst in through the connecting door and shot Mr. Holder in the head. Your sister screamed, but you knew because of the layout of the house that it would take the gentlemen downstairs a clear minute to reach the door, and longer to break though it as you were about to lock it. You then killed your own flesh and blood, hence your sister's dying look of hatred.”

The man was shaking now. Holmes went on remorselessly.

“By this time, I estimate, the gentlemen were trying the locked door”, he said. “This in itself was another point against your sister's guilt; why would she lock herself in, when it would only delay the inevitable discovery of 'her' crime? You, meanwhile, had your escape lined up. The sergeant correctly noted that no-one came in by the window of Mr. Holder's room – but you simply went back into the bedroom you had just left, and exited through that window. The catch is easy to cause to fall shut when pulled from the outside; I tried it myself earlier whilst we were in the room. There is a footprint on that balcony which, I am sure, will match your boots.”

“You did two things before leaving the scene of the crime however, which I must admit were most cunning. You moved the lavender candle to just behind the door, so that it would be knocked over when the others broke through, and you threw a handful of lavender stalks onto the fire.”

“Why would he do that?” I asked.

“Because he wanted to drive home the idea that the room's balcony door played no part in the proceedings”, Holmes explained. “Had it been used, then the smell would have quickly dissipated. Unfortunately that move was also your undoing. In this envelope I have a sample of the ashes from that fire. A scientific analysis will show that they include the remains of lavender, and I see from your own hands that a single grain of the plant remains lodged in your index fingernail.”

The man looked down in horror, and let out a sob.

“So to finish”, Holmes went on. “You returned via the balconies to your own room, then emerged, claiming that you had been in the water closet. Doubtless later, once all the fuss had died down, you would have removed the spare maid's outfit from the house, and cleaned up around that room's window just in case.”

“His own sister!” I said, shocked to my very core.

“I talked with Mr. March earlier”, Holmes said, “and he confirmed that Miss Bessborough was a full co-heiress to the estate. By eliminating her before she married and had children, he ensured that he would inherit everything, and by eliminating Mr. Holder, he guaranteed that his own dark secret would never see the light of day.”

The man turned a piteous face towards us both.

“Have mercy!” he begged.

“It is for the sake of Miss Bessborough that I am offering you a way out”, Holmes said, sounding almost angry. “Personally, I would like to see you swing for what you did. However, sign this confession, the doctor and I will witness it, and we will only hand it to the sergeant in twenty-five minutes' time. I am sure that you still have the gun in your room, sir.”

The man nodded dumbly, reached for the pen and scrawled something almost illegible at the bottom of the paper. I countersigned, and watched as he lurched from the room, a broken man.

“Is it really right to let him out this way?” I asked tentatively.

Holmes sighed.

“Without this”, he said, holding up the confession, “our case is dangerously weak. Even if he was prosecuted in a court of law, his lawyer would try to defend him by besmirching his sister's name, claiming that he was trying to protect her. No, my friend. As at Oxford, justice and the law do not always make good bedfellows.”

+~+~+

Five minutes later, there was a single shot from an upstairs bedroom....

+~+~+

“Your full-time course finishes next summer?” Holmes said, those brilliant blue eyes shining next to me as we waited for the trap to come and collect me. I nodded.

“It does”, I said. “And I shall have the indubitable joy of trying to find employment, whilst still attending college.”

“You said that they had offered you the chance to return to Northumberland, and find a doctor's post there?”

I have to confess that I was surprised he remembered my home county, though perhaps the memory of Stamford's atrocious bagpipe-playing had something to do with that.

“I plan on staying in London”, I told him. “I sold the family house when I moved here, and Sammy has a few more years to go at Edinburgh, his course being longer than mine. Besides, job opportunities are so much greater down here, although I shall have to quit my current lodgings once I start practice; they are part-funded by the hospital, and I could not afford them on my own.”

The man looked at me almost hesitatingly, then surprised me by taking my hand in his. A shudder ran through me.

“I was wondering”, he said slowly, “if you might consider sharing lodgings with me. I know that I am not the easiest person in the world to get along with, but you seem more able to tolerate me than most of my fellow humans. At least say that you would consider it?”

I recovered myself.

“Yes”, I said with a smile. “I would definitely consider it.”

He smiled that small smile that I would come to know so well, and I thought that just perhaps, he was not that far short of handsome after all. 

The hair apart, that was!

+~+~+

Before we finally move into our first home together, Holmes solves a case without even being there!


End file.
